This is a silly post with silly implications, even though I appreciate its rhetorical goals
The really c/mildlyinfuriating fact is there are more empty homes in the US than homeless.
Based on currently available numbers, there are about 31 vacant housing units for every homeless person in the U.S. src
You don’t even need to involve churches. You need to hold individuals and businesses who hoard real estate for profit accountable. (There is also the matter of the logistics of getting homeless people into those homes, but I will not dive into that here.)
I appreciate the sentiment of this post, but please be sure to check your predetermined biases before you use the text of this meme to inform your opinion on policy.
I don't follow what's silly here. These motherfuckers are not taxed and also not obligated to give back and that should matter. Tax them, would be the obvious solution
Yeah the moral bit is we know people who hold housing for profit are douches. Churches are worse because they think they're doing the Lord's work and love talking about caring for people, but very few actually do any good.
Am I reading this right? Are you saying that churches are worse than house-hoarding landlords, just because they think they're doing good but a lot of them don't? Even the 18% of churches that rent their buildings from other churches^[1]^ (or the ones that rent non-church properties like theaters or schools,) and thus almost certainly don't even have a property they could give? Or what about the 48% of churches that run or support a food pantry^[2]^, and are thus doing good?
clearing out this comment as it wasn’t helpful to the conversation
Well thanks, but to be fair, I was asking Scrubbles. When it comes to an opinion I disagree with, it's more fruitful to talk to the person who holds that opinion than it is to deride the opinion with someone else who already agrees with me. Partially because there's a good chance of a misunderstanding.
Not to say the rest of your remark is invalid, just addressing the first sentence where you seem to be speaking on Scrubbles' behalf.
Fair enough! I hope I’m wrong lol.
very few actually do any good.
Cite this and I will change my opinion.
If all churches were to be taxed, the estimated new income would be a paltry $2.4 billion yearly. source
While there is no consensus on the cost to end homelessness, estimates suggest the cost to be more than $300 billion.
So yeah. A bit silly, or at least not an “obvious solution.”
Edit: Meanwhile, taxing the rich and mega corporations is quite effective at retrieving this kind of cash, into the trillions. My personal position, if asked (though I want to be clear taxes were not the original topic at hand), is that taxing owners of multiple residential properties into unafordability is an important step toward ending homelessness.
tldr, The users downvoting this comment are letting their anti-religious sentiment cloud the noxious nature of late stage capitalism. In a world where human lives are less important than profit, for fucks sake the nonprofits are not the primary blame.
When I said "solution", the problem I was talking about was how unfair it is that religious groups get tax exempt status despite doing nothing to earn that, and a lot to prove they should be taxed. I never said that suddenly we could feed and house all the homeless with those tax dollars
Post and my comment are about homelessness. Categorically, neither the post nor my comment were about taxes. So you changed the subject without even indicating you were doing so. 🙄
Awesome cool thank you for your contribution. But yeah glad to see we agree on an entirely tangentially related topic.
Edit: You are free to discuss taxes. But stop trying to frame it as a disagreement with my position which had nothing to do with taxes. Do it elsewhere where relevant.
The post is about the contradiction between homeless people getting the shaft while churches get handouts. There was no change of subject, you just set your focus narrowly and apparently decided anyone outside that would be wrong in multiple ways.
You are free to discuss taxes. But stop trying to frame it as a disagreement with my position which had nothing to do with taxes. Do it elsewhere where relevant.
Not getting taxed while taking in revenue is a handout. Not sure why you're so insistent on arguing.
You're adamant that your random subjective reading if the post is the only valid one and it's not. It's weird you want to insist it is
There are plenty of valid complaints about (many) American religious institutions, but the constant shoe-horning in of complaints about religion in unrelated posts that I see on Lemmy comes across as bitter and myopic.
A lot of us have been victims of the church(hi); its leaves a bloody trench in its wake.
or tried our hand at activism and been smacked down by religious groups for doing the shit they espouse on paper (not strongly me, in any way I care about) and are understandably bitter.
And it hits harder, because most people grew up hearing these are the paragons of moral virtue, and then then pull this shit.
Plus they won't shut up and get a ton of special treatment, but almost never use it for good (notice nobody's talking shit about Harriet Tubman, john brown, or the quakers. Diggers levellers anabaptists, too, not even the ULC or church of Satan).
They paint their own target.
Sure, and that's terrible, but from a different perspective, most of these beliefs and behaviors you've identified would persist without religious institutions and their proponents formalizing them as policy. Religion can give people a way to justify a lot of the terrible beliefs that they had internalized anyway, because it's part of the dominant culture. But misogyny, racism, homophobia, transphobia, classism, xenophobia, and moral hypocrisy aren't caused by religion or religious beliefs, any more so than atheism or agnosticism causes people to be tolerant or accepting of others in spite of their differences. And that's a foundational premise to many of the criticisms of religion I see on Lemmy. But it's just objectively wrong. If you want to look at a historical example of the productive power of religion, look no further than the SCLC (Southern Christian Leadership Conference), which was one of, if not the most significant, political and religious organizations of the Civil Rights movement. It helped to organize people into a fighting force for real progressive change and it did so by way of lines of communication between black congregations across the country. For even more examples of religion as a tool of social progress, I recommend the wikipedia page on Liberation Theology.
Missing the point.
I already mentioned that shoehorning criticism of religion into conversations that were unrelated came across as bitter and myopic. Your point was, essentially, that a lot of people are bitter towards Christianity, which is implied by my own observation. If you have nothing to add beyond restating what was already said by the person to whom you are replying, then I would suggest saving yourself the time in the future and just clicking the up arrow. Or doing literally nothing. Either of those are fine options.
I was commenting after thatthat had been done. Youre arguing with the wrong person, regardless of how I feel about your points. I'm going to be the bigger person and leave now
Then come back, after a cup of tea, and write this part.
You can be all manner of shitty without religion, but religion as a framework is generally (and they're not all the same) a tool for getting people to accept and do awful shit-partially, I admit, a (violent) selection pressure, but when you believe blatantly magical bullshit, you're more easily manipulated against your stated conscience and general interest, and the people willing to do that tend to be the biggest bastards. Its also a mostly static model of reality youre very emotionally attached to, with no or problematic adjustment mechanisms, and those are always dangerous, even when they're as or more accurate than other options (which none of the big ones are).
Religion doesn't determine good/bad, but it's got its finger on the needle. That's not to say it hasn't produced things I respect; Spinoza, Hegel, guy whose name I can never remember how to spell who wrote 'pedagogy of the oppressed', but I'm not sure how much any of those are attributable to it, and a lot (most? One is too many) of those holy wars (including the worst ongoing genocide I'm aware of at time if writing) serve(d) little/no material interest, of anyone.
So I'm only saying this because you basically walked up and asked me. But also I'm queer and it makes me feel very unsafe. Its a kind of volatility, if someone is, say, any of the abrahamic faiths, that they can just... Turn, almost instantly, for reasons I can't argue or persuade or accommodate, for no real reason, against my very existence. Ive lost a lot of people to that. And it fucking sucks. No nonreligious person did this to me until ~2016. It took fascism, which I would argue is a (particularly bad) religion.
So your assertions here are the following:
religion functions by 1) lying to people about the fundamental nature of reality in order to 2) manipulate them into doing bad things and that central to this is the idea that doing point 1 actively enables or facilitates point 2.
religion constitutes a "static model of reality" to which people are emotionally attached, which is fundamentally dangerous.
religion does not "determine" good or bad.
Religious violence is a thing that exists.
You're queer and religion bothers you.
So, point by point:
many religions make complex assertions about the metaphysical nature of the universe, often including the existence of supernatural phenomena, individuals, locations, etc. I'm not going to try to argue for the existence of any mystical element of any particular faith, but I will challenge the innately reductive analysis of religion you've provided. Most religions, particularly the very old ones, incorporate historical, philosophical, artistic, communal, and ethical traditions. You seem to center your understanding of religious faith around the metaphysical or supernatural components and have asserted that these components warp the underlying perception of reality of its participants for the express purpose of making people behave in such a way as to "do awful shit" and act against your "conscience and general interest." In making a causal assertion of this kind, however, you really need to be able to support that assertion with something that proves a causal link between what you describe as a belief in "blatantly magical bullshit" and a specific pattern of behavior. Why is it the belief in the supernatural and not, for example, hierarchical organizations of power, something that has existed as a component of organized religion for millennia, but also in virtually all political and dominant social institutions for just as long? Perhaps people are more inclined towards mob mentality or to fall behind powerful and charismatic leaders, regardless of the institution from which they're working. For example, the Soviet Union under Stalin was a brutally repressive society that actively criminalized both organized religion and LGBT persons. The absence of religion did not magically produce a society devoid of people unwilling to brutally oppress their fellow countrymen.
you seem to be working with terms that don't really carry a lot of significance or meaning for anyone other than yourself. What, exactly, do you think constitutes a "static model of reality?" And what, exactly, is problematic about that? Because in my mind, most people operate with a fairly static understanding of reality. Not to say it's the same understanding of reality. Ideologies are as complex and different as the people that internalize them, and they inform our personal understanding of the world we inhabit. For most people, altering these beliefs about the world is non-trivial. As a staunch leftist, someone would have a hard time selling me on the merits of laissez-faire capitalism as an effective mechanism of distributing wealth in a society. My understanding of the fundamental nature of economics, human nature, and reality itself precludes this. Am I working from an overly static and inflexible model of reality?
religion is deeply concerned with the nature of good and evil. Admittedly, these are things you might not actually believe in. Perhaps you're a moral relativist. Perhaps not. If you are, I don't have much to say to you about this. You believe good and evil are culturally determined moral concepts and nothing else, from a personal perspective, beyond socially conditioned behavior.
religious violence, or "Holy Wars" as you've put it, are virtually all fought for the same purpose as any other war: the primitive acquisition of wealth and the expansion of a nation or nations hegemony. If you think what's going on in Palestine is not driven by Israel's desire for Palestinian land, then I have a bridge to sell you.
your experiences are both tragic and common. I've personally been physically and emotionally abused by members of specific religious organizations, for reasons and in ways I don't feel comfortable sharing with strangers on the internet, and by people who were sociopaths that used religion as a cudgel to bully and control others. But I've also been comforted and treated kindly by other people for whom their religious faith was an important part of their lives - people who were sick and in pain their entire lives, but who found serenity and comfort through their beliefs and shared that with people around them who were also suffering. History is full of people who used religion as an excuse to do terrible things, but history also has a tendency to amplify monsters and forget the decent people whose faith may have driven them to have a more positive impact on the world.
If you want to hate religion because you're bitter, that's fine. You can feel about religion any way that you want. But don't be offended when you bring it up out of nowhere and someone tells you that your comments are irrelevant to the current discussion.
The world doesn't revolve around your personal bitterness.
You're saying I'm saying 'religion is x'
I'm generally saying 'religion tends towards x' so two twins, one raised religious, one not, you could end up with anything.
A hundred sets of twins, one in each set religious, the other not influenced by it at all; the religious ones, on average, are gonna suck more, but only on average.
I do think the concept that 'the world doesn't matter because its temporary and only heaven matters, therefore anything is permissible' is terrifying, and should get you kept away from sharp objects heavy machinery and any position of authority over anything. There are a few specific points doctrine about beliefs like that, that only show up without religion in cases of extreme mental illness, and I think can skew the average of how shit people are, but they tend to differ even between people sitting on the sane pew.
You seem very intent on picking fights about this though, and the things youre arguing against are not the ones I have said. (Some I believe, some I don't, some you could maybe stretch to being a straw man of something I believe). You don't seem to really be arguing with me here, and me engaging with what you say seems to be mostly ignored. Are you okay?
Lemmy has a weird hate-boner for Christianity. It's like a visceral toxic hatred. Sure it would make more sense for you to take from the top one percent in society to actually solve the problem, but that way you don't get to punish an entire religious group for their vocal minority 1% who squander wealth and strive for political power, using Jesus as nothing more than a stepping stool
A lot of it probably comes from deeply negative personal experiences, combined with a general propensity for people to apply a categorical belief to particular experiences. People who were treated badly by a particular group of Christians, or people who see and hear about certain Christians advocating for some terrible politician or political goal, are applying a generalized belief to how all Christians act, and potentially to all religion in general. It's much harder to accept that the world is a deeply complicated and messy place and that religion and religious belief is a much more complex element of human civilization, culture, and personal identity than what many people would care to acknowledge.
Yeah. I regularly attend multiple churches. There are a few bad eggs, sure, but 99% of people I talk to there are either lovely people or normal people. Same goes for workplaces as well. I don't see Churches as being worse than any other environment I've been in. But when assholes are Christians, they weaponise the Bible to justify being an asshole. If anything I think Christians in general should be more vocal about things happening in churches that are not okay, but there may be a concern of causing division in an otherwise wholesome atmosphere.
I have a close friend who converted to Christianity, and they said that a fault they observe in Christians can be that they're too nice and too vulnerable, to the point that people can get away with not very nice things.
I think Atheism gets a bad rap these days also. I'm sure most atheists are lovely people, but the people who make it known that they're atheists, or make it their whole personality, are not.
(There is also the matter of the logistics of getting homeless people into those homes, but I will not dive into that here.)
And caring for them, because a lot of them can't function as normal members of society for whatever reason. The real estate is only one piece of this. But yeah, if people were willing to pay for all that, it wouldn't be a problem. As it is, it's always the next guy's problem.
Correct. The “whatever reasons” you cite include chronic illness, mental illness, addiction, and abusive relationships. These are not unique to homelessness but are disproportionately prevalent in the population and therefore a key obstacle to overcome.
Addressing this takes labor and money to handle, a process that is often undertaken by nonprofits with funding from government, but also from charities and churches.
Not sufficient funding though, obviously. Sure there's programs, but there's usually a gigantic waiting list, or the service is so overcrowded some of the potential clients would rather try their luck on their own. And, if the government is involved, there tends to be a kind of red tape that can only be described as mean-spirited.
Maid on Netflix is a great depiction of what it's like in the first-world underclass, if anyone is interested.
Mmm I think you’re missing one of the core points of this though: churches have historically and traditionally offered and been used as sanctuaries, often by the poor and downtrodden in a society. In the US these days, you don’t see nearly as much of that. It’s more about evangelism and dogmatism and prosperity gospel. Christians in the US demonstrably doesn’t care that much about poor people these days.
More broadly: as someone who was raised Christian but is now a staunch atheist, I and many others would have far fewer issues with Christians if they would actually fucking practice what their religion preaches instead of whatever some MAGApastor tells you that Supply Side Jesus says.
I don’t disagree with you per se? I simply haven’t seen empirical evidence to support this statement:
Christians in the US demonstrably [don’t] care about the poor that much these days.
Meanwhile the evidence that the ultra wealthy are actively screwing over the lower class piles up daily. If you have a citation for that thesis above I’d love to talk.
Yeah, this was my first thought as well as soon as I read the image. We have tons and tons of literally empty housing units. Even if you take away the ones that are only temporarily vacant while searching for a new tenant, you're still left with a bunch of housing units that sit empty, waiting to be flipped for a profit by real estate investors.
Most homeless are in the big cities, most churches are out in the boonies. The homeless are very unlikely to accept being bussed to a flyover state to sleep in a church in bumfuck nowhere. For a myriad of reasons.
Keep in mind also that a lot of them have a very hard time accepting any help due to past trauma as well.
It's not a situation with a quick fix. Really the first step isn't even ensuring housing for the homeless, it's making sure we don't get more homeless. We likely can't save a subset of today's homeless because they don't want/or won't accept any help that comes with any strings (like no drugs or just they can't trash the place). But we can ensure no-one else ends up on the streets by beefing up mental healthcare and social services.
Churches "sponsor" people in other countries all the time. They could do the same for two people in the nearest city, they don't have to force people to relocate.
There is actually an easy fix - build houses and give them to people. I remember when "Habitat for Humanity" was so much more prominent in churches.
I can't tell if you are purposefully taking the post literally just to be able to shoot it down... But I'm giving you the benefit of the doubt
Just think of how many homeless people would actually refuse to live in any of these Mega mansions
Or better yet, imagine what these "churches" could do with the literal millions they spend in mansions and private jets to help the homeless... You know, if they actually care about that and were not just tax avoidance operations
Since I'm not American I keep forgetting about your for profit churches. The concept is just too foreign to me. When I think church I think of 300 year old cold stone building in the countryside.
Still there are homeless that would refuse, some from not believing or trusting you, some from not wanting to relocate even if it means that level of comfort, some from being deep into addiction thinking that they'll be forced to get clean. And some will take you up on it and just absolutely trash the place trying to steal anything not bolted down.
That said the vast majority would for sure jump on it and thrive. So if it was at all possible to make happen it would be a good idea.
America definitely has its old, historic churches, but they're far from common.
We have so many other kinds of churches, huge mega churches that essentially have a whole campus. Tiny churches in shopping centers. Growing up I went to a little church that was in the middle of an otherwise normal neighborhood.
Megachurches are the minority of churches though
I can’t tell if you are purposefully taking the post literally just to be able to shoot it down.
Most people here are taking the post literally. A smaller, not insignificant but smaller, number are reading satire/irony (regarding tax exemption) into it but that does not mean there is only one valid interpretation.
Pro tip, if you need to reject the majority reading of a rhetorical post in order to defend it, that’s an indication you might be the one who is approaching in bad faith. Either that or the post is indefensible and needs rewritten.
I happen to agree with your position too, but just be careful about calling that commenter out for something as benign as taking a straightforward text literally.
They have a hard time "accepting help" because as often as not; it isn't really help.
Its libs jacking themselves off with the monkey paw; doing awful shit using nice words so they can feel good while being assholes.
Sure you get a room and three meals a day! No pets, must detox first, curfew but also you must have a job, and also dont mind the bars haha yes we do have to lock you in.
You must be out of your mind to prefer sleeping in drug riddled unsafe camps in a leaky tent to what you just described. You tried to make it look bad, but even with your hyperbole it really isn't.
You've obviously never been homeless or had an animal you gave a shit about.
I love my dog. I only adopted her when I had the living space and security to take care of her. Strange how that works huh?
I wonder how much you actually care about an animal if you think it's something to be used as leverage for not having to better your life.
Like half of Americans are one paycheck away from being homeless. So what point exactly are you making? That you're morally superior for being better off? Or that we should wait until we have at least two paychecks saved? You have all the answers?
My answer seems to be living in a developed country in Europe. I can tell you, I felt very superior about the place I live walking the streets of San Francisco last year and being harassed by homeless people every street corner asking me for money or drugs.
Also yes, have at least two paychecks saved if that's a possibility for you. It's hilarious how you try to make your own advice seem like some alien concept that's unachievable.
I didn't feel morally superior at all, but the way you people are unable to come up with any good excuse why homeless people don't want to use the help that's available to them and instead turn into raging incoherent idiots is quickly changing that.
Had the dog when you became homeless.
Found a stray who helped you, with emotional support and doggishness(finding food, staying safe), as has been a thing since before humans ever slept inside anything other than a fucking cave, to survive.
Seems like you just want an excuse to hunt them for sport, because realizing they're so fucking similar to you and youre like two pieces of paperwork (not even filed by you, doesn't even need to be correct) away from being in that position is Fucking Terrifying, but you also don't want to have a society where we don't let this fucking happen to people, because you're afraid you won't get as many of your favorite treats.
Don't be that guy.
Lmao all these assumptions and strawmen. It's really not worth my time to respond to your incoherent ramble because I actually got my shit together. Good luck, don't let your copium run out.
So you don't deny any of it? Just deflect abd reassure yourself that 'I have my shit together, so it can't happen to me'
Cope
Why do they always say exactly that? As if I'm the one with the fucked coping mechanisms here, instead of responding to anything ive said, like its some sort of gotcha?
Are you mad?
You're not even responding to shit I said; youre just like three comments into trying to find an excuse why I'm someone you shouldn't listen to, because compassion is too scary for you, but you would feel like such a huge ass arguing against the things I've said, and you know it.
I mean, even before you get as far as the opinion of the homeless, most churches aren't going to want to host two high-needs, possibly substance-addicted people from the big city in their atrium ("think of the children!"), which is the point of this.
It's a situation that absolutely has a quick fix, just not a super cheap quick fix. It's far easier to not formally address it, and leave the cost on them and whoever happens to be around them. There's more than enough resources out to fix it if there was the political will.
Also there is a cheap quick fix, because there is adequate empty housing. Landlords just refuse to rent it. The people just need to confiscate unused housing after x (x being an appropriate number for the area) days not being a primary residence.
Not the government. The people. And if the resident leaves/dies, that housing goes to someone new. The landlord never gets it back. That's important; they need to be afraid, but have an easy out (just put somebody in there, lower rent, etc)
I mean, taxing away houses and then giving them back to the homeless still counts as an expenditure. You're probably going to want to give them each a nurse and a meal plan as well, if you want them to stick around, because as mentioned these people often have persistent issues.
Not the government. The people.
The people have never done shit. Not once in history.
Taxing is the government. They work for the owners, not the people dying on the street. Governments are all, at this moment in the supreme court, advocating for the right to criminalize sleeping outside even when there's literally no other legal option.
The people have never done shit. Not once in history.
Oh. I guess every single history source I've ever read lied then. Thanks for informing me.
What have you been reading? Pretty much the only place where the people magically, spontaneously organise is in political speeches. The Patriots wouldn't have existed without guys like Jefferson, the French revolution was run by rogue military factions and exclusive political clubs, and the Leninists have it right in their name.
Oh. Shit magical and spontaneous? So there's nothing other than a master with a whip and a fucking wizard?
Its not what i favor, or what im proposing, but spontaneous organization does happen. Youve never been in a disaster, or started digging a hole at the beach, have you?
So there’s nothing other than a master with a whip and a fucking wizard?
Kind of, yeah. The way I see it it's a human limitation; we need a certain level of indirection to pull off anything bigger than a band of hunter-gatherers. Some systems are more whippy than others, though.
Youve never been in a disaster, or started digging a hole at the beach, have you?
Actually, yes I have, but never have I seen more than a handful of people get involved at once, and I never heard from that dude who started directing traffic again. I've also seen the bystander effect. Never in history. Maybe on the beach, but not in history.
You've never tried to organise any kind of activism, have you?
So, the beach thing. Why does it happen, and why does it 'not happen anywhere else'?
Have you read 'a paradise built in hell'?
Did you read my point about believing in the existence of, but not favoring spontaneous organization. A deliberate but headless structure is possible! They're actually really cool! Good thing too, because strict hierarchies are wildly inefficient and trend towards flattening the territory to match the map, which tends to lead to fascism.
And if I believed it was only a fuhrer or a grand wizard, I'd fucking kill myself and take as many as I could with me. Thankfully I've seen (and executed) proof to the contrary.
As far as I can tell, being in a novel enough situation emergency puts people in a different headspace. After a while, normality creeps back in, and if the emergency continues it looks less like a community pulling together and more like Haiti or parts of Myanmar. Mostly, though, it's an empirical observation. Besides what we've covered, it's hard as shit to get people to show up or care about activism, and if a meeting gets big enough it stops working, so you have to appoint someone to head whatever thing. This proves true over and over again.
I don't think that automatically means Hitler, though. Representative democracy seems to work if set up just right. Hopefully it's here to stay.
The second shittiest roommate I ever had was a loud evangelical.
I was at the time actively the closest thing she would ever meet to a particular famous dude who died on the thing she worshipped, who she claimed to care about.
When she started fucking with my shit while I was out, I just made a bunch of copies of the house key and handed them out, so I'd have people to watch my door for me. Started cooking big dinners. She couldn't actually say anything.
The trick is; don't Fucking ask. Point out that sleeping in the park sucks and will get you killed by police, but meetings in the park are genuinely pleasant (unless climate change is real). They might shoot you, but they won't be able to argue.
Apologies I didn't understand what this means, did you hand out keys so your friends would randomly be over and she would be afraid of getting caught?
Friends? A couple, I hope I can call friends, but the rest just went to anyone unhoused who wanted a warm place to sleep/hang and a hot meal.
If every church houses two homeless people, no more homeless people.
Assuming the distribution is the same for both
(it's not)
But the point is not invalid. It's a problem that seems insurmountable but can definitely be tackled.
Although homeless people absolutely can and do migrate. They prefer cities for somewhat similar reasons to everyone else, and with no place they are allowed to live why not squat somewhere with lots of (begging/stealing/dumpsterdiving) opportunities and shorter walks?
Maybe OP believes every town in the US has exactly 1 church and 2 homeless people and is mildly infuriated that the church doesn't allow the 2 homeless people to live there?
I think OP believes every town in the US has twice as many homeless people as churches, it doesnt need to be exactly 1 church and 2 homeless people.
But either way, that's probably not true. Since homeless people tend to be in larger cities.
But then again, lots of people become homless in the suburbs and then move to the city to get the social services. If churches in the suburbs housed a few people as they become homeless, it would probably help. It's better to keep people in their communities so they have a better chance of returning to housefullness.
But probably not that much, since homelessness rates are strongly correlated with housing prices, so expensive cities create more homelessness than cheap suburbs.
Not sure why you'd think OP is saying 1 church per town. Just that there are ~380k churches in the United States, and less than twice as many homeless people.
I agree, far too many people are left out in the cold at night when we have many public, climate-controlled buildings with working bathrooms and possibly even showers that are empty after a certain hour. If the homeless were able to regularly get a good night's sleep and a shower in, they might be more able to hold down jobs and become contributing members of society again.
Schools certainly would be great as a shelter after hours, most have gyms with showers, possibly laundry machines, and certainly ample space for someone to sleep with a sleeping bag. If we could just figure out a way to make sure everything stays clean for students to use the next day, no left-behind drugs, no vandalism, etc. that could be a wonderful solution.
My guess is that in most places the homeless population would easily fit within the gymnasium alone.
They're implying that there are two homeless people for every church and that every church should house two homeless people to solve homelessness. Not agreeing with OP, just trying to answer your question.
and that every church should house two homeless people
Not even directly house. Even helping support those 2 people would go a long way toward demonstrating that churches actually do some good.
There's only two more homeless people than churches in the United States. If we make every homeless person into a church, we can also have more churches.
I’m also confused by what the image itself is trying to say
If you take 2 of every homeless person in the US into one of every church in the US, there would be no more homeless people in the US.
That rate of homelessness seems like a wild underestimate. However, I don't know much about the southern united states other than that they basically export the homelessness they create to other states through bussing programs. So this number might be better calculated considering both the spatial distribution of homelessness and the spatial distribution of churches. With out knowing where the churches are and where the homeless are, the number is a bit beguiling. That being said, it does seem that its the areas with lots of churches that create the conditions for homelessness, and then those areas export the problem they create to other areas (rural red states have been bussing the homeless and other 'undesirables' to metro areas of blue states for decades, rather than fund and operate local solutions).
That being said, it does seem that its the areas with lots of churches that create the conditions for homelessness
Huh? Is this like a red state/blue state thing, or do you have something to indicate that towns with more churches generate more homeless? It doesn't really make sense to me because homelessness is tied to housing prices, and cities are where housing is more expensive, and the ratio of church to population is probably a lot lower in cities.
It's a red state blue state thing.
Red states (rural areas) deal with homelessness by buying the homeless bus tickets and sending them to metropolitan areas within blue states. Basically, red states create issues with homelessness because of their social policies, then externalize the consequences of those policies. This has been the case for decades. Before 2010 this was almost exclusively a red state issue. They would buy a homeless person a bus ticket to CA or NY and that was that. However, more recently some blue cities like Portland are trying the same strategy.
I thought this was common knowledge around homelessness in the US, that it was a blue state problem caused by red states.
Well it can't be exclusively caused by red states, but I see what you mean. I'm just not a fan of the implication that churches have something to do with it.
Bruh who the duck do you think is buying the tickets.
It's not an implication, it's an direct consequence.
Churches are a toxic venom in the vein of society, this kind of exclusionary behavior is precisely why the exist.
You conflate Christianity with Republicanism. Please do not act like churches are the mastermind behind politicians who use vaguely church-scented branding to try to pander to Christians while acting against many of the principles laid out in the Bible.
I believe that number was accurate in 2022 as noted in the screenshot but has risen to 650,000 since.
You're reaching
My home town had four churches and no homeless people. What homeless people are those churches supposed to help?
Meanwhile, in the city I now live in, there's tons of churches and half of them give free food to the homeless every single day, and there's lines going around the block at all of them.
There is no magic bullet that can solve homelessness. Anything proposed must be a part of a larger solution. There are tons of proposals that, if actually done and not half-assed, would help immensely.
I do not understand these downvotes. Like how dare you see churches that actually help the poor like they're supposed to?
It's people downvoting because "Religion = bad".
When in reality it should be "Religion = institutions and institutions can be either good or bad or mix of both."
Edit: Spelling
It hurts because a good number of churches DO = bad, but we lack the emotional drive to identify which ones and call on their downfall. The result is we amplify blanket statements and assumptions that do nothing but give a pass of diversion to immoral soul sucking capitalists, all of whom are directly responsible for the housing crisis.
Knee jerk emotional voting. People don’t like seeing information that contradicts their deeply rooted beliefs, and downvoting is emotionally less costly than performing self-investigation.
Don’t get me wrong I would love if every problem in America could be patched by taxing some sussy non profits. But there’s no evidence for that.
At best it’s a comfy position that lets you “not my problem” your way through life, at worst it’s propganda to divert attention from the system of capital that is actually keeping the lower class unhoused and constantly struggling.
Not trying to be a smartass here, it’s genuinely just human nature to choose an emotionally efficient worldview. One-on-one conversations and counter propoganda are one solution to getting folks to see truth. It just takes energy.
You are getting downvoted but you are unabashedly correct. The rhetorical goals behind the post are noble, but the suggested solution is infeasible to a degree that verges on laughable.
Homeless people need to live in homes, of which there are plenty being hoarded vacant by the ultra wealthy.
Homes for the homeless fixes homelessness. Guess what giving a homeless person a church to live in makes them? Still homeless.
In the worst case interpretation, this meme is using churches as a polemical meat shield to protect neoliberal and corporate interests.
Those churches might have already helped. I'm no fan of religion for it's various stupidities, but I am a fan of organized good will.
They're not spread out like churches though. Here, it might work, we have an insane # of churches per capita and a lot of homeless, but what about LA? No way there are as many churches as homeless there. Same with houses, as someone suggests upthread. There are few vacant spaces here and many who need homes but in any state beginning with the letter I maybe there are thousands of homes and few homeless because they would freeze to death in the winter.
One per church?
ITT: People who don't know homeless people can catch a ride to a different town like anyone else.
I mean, I don't actually think in churches is the right idea, but that's a nitpick, not a gotcha.
I hate the idea of treating homeless like babies. Most of these people got to where they are by choices. If they wanted to stay at the church they probably can. Most churches I know have cots for people down and out. If these people wanted to stay at the church they would have.
If churches are going to be a tax free non-profit, we need to see 'services done' at roughly a similar order of magnitude as their receipts would allow. And no, a couple of cots is not the answer. Perhaps a small apartment building with 8 units that the church owns and operates, and provides permanent residency for a small local population of the unhoused.
Other wise I think they church should be disbanded and its organizers held liable for tax fraud.
Well I don't think you should go trying to disband someone's religion. In my area Churches usually donate people and money to organizations that help the homeless. I've worked in the soup kitchens serving hundreds
I mean if they've got the receipts of how the money is spent like any other non-profit has to provide, I have no issue with it. If they can't provide the receipts, that's a for-profit institution, and should be taxed as such.
By definition of non profit they should not be making profit
If I run a 501-3c (and I have), I have to provide what amounts to a complete budget of where my organizations income came from, where it went to, and how much was spent on things like overhead, office expenses, executive pay, travel, etc. My board is responsible for me getting those numbers right, otherwise we run afoul of the IRS.
Churches are not held to the same standard. A church is effectively granted tax free status on its receipts (income) and is not required to provide any charitable services as a product of those receipts. They are fundamentally different legal entities, however, I'm arguing that they shouldn't be, and that churches and "faith based" institutions should be held to the same standards as any other charitable organization under the 501c3 definition of a non-profit.
If your church or faith based organization doesn't exist to provide a charitable mission, then it shouldn't be free from taxation (or it should not exist).
Churches don't make money. That wouldn't make any sense unless someone is embezzling
Are you serious?? Like, honest to goodnesses, are you serious?
There are more empty homes in the US than homeless.
While churches taking extreme advantage of tax exemption is a concern, a concern that should be addressed, this situation pales in comparison to the hoarding, lobbying and zoning that goes into keeping the illusion that housing is a scarce resource up, and prices intentionally high.
A lot of them have severe mental health issues
Most of these people got to where they are by choices.
Objectively false. Huge majorities of homeless individuals face chronic illness, disability, untreated mental illness, or have been abused.
The numbers vary, but most homeless people have a job and still can’t get housing due to overwhelming unaffordability, a factor which is manipulated against them by zoning laws and corporate ownership.
This is a silly post with silly implications, even though I appreciate its rhetorical goals
The really c/mildlyinfuriating fact is there are more empty homes in the US than homeless.
You don’t even need to involve churches. You need to hold individuals and businesses who hoard real estate for profit accountable. (There is also the matter of the logistics of getting homeless people into those homes, but I will not dive into that here.)
I appreciate the sentiment of this post, but please be sure to check your predetermined biases before you use the text of this meme to inform your opinion on policy.
I don't follow what's silly here. These motherfuckers are not taxed and also not obligated to give back and that should matter. Tax them, would be the obvious solution
Yeah the moral bit is we know people who hold housing for profit are douches. Churches are worse because they think they're doing the Lord's work and love talking about caring for people, but very few actually do any good.
Am I reading this right? Are you saying that churches are worse than house-hoarding landlords, just because they think they're doing good but a lot of them don't? Even the 18% of churches that rent their buildings from other churches^[1]^ (or the ones that rent non-church properties like theaters or schools,) and thus almost certainly don't even have a property they could give? Or what about the 48% of churches that run or support a food pantry^[2]^, and are thus doing good?
[1] - https://www.christianitytoday.com/pastors/2018/fall-state-of-church-ministry/two-churches-one-roof.html
[2] - https://theconversation.com/nearly-half-of-all-churches-and-other-faith-institutions-help-people-get-enough-to-eat-170074
clearing out this comment as it wasn’t helpful to the conversation
Well thanks, but to be fair, I was asking Scrubbles. When it comes to an opinion I disagree with, it's more fruitful to talk to the person who holds that opinion than it is to deride the opinion with someone else who already agrees with me. Partially because there's a good chance of a misunderstanding.
Not to say the rest of your remark is invalid, just addressing the first sentence where you seem to be speaking on Scrubbles' behalf.
Fair enough! I hope I’m wrong lol.
Cite this and I will change my opinion.
If all churches were to be taxed, the estimated new income would be a paltry $2.4 billion yearly. source
While there is no consensus on the cost to end homelessness, estimates suggest the cost to be more than $300 billion.
So yeah. A bit silly, or at least not an “obvious solution.”
Edit: Meanwhile, taxing the rich and mega corporations is quite effective at retrieving this kind of cash, into the trillions. My personal position, if asked (though I want to be clear taxes were not the original topic at hand), is that taxing owners of multiple residential properties into unafordability is an important step toward ending homelessness.
tldr, The users downvoting this comment are letting their anti-religious sentiment cloud the noxious nature of late stage capitalism. In a world where human lives are less important than profit, for fucks sake the nonprofits are not the primary blame.
When I said "solution", the problem I was talking about was how unfair it is that religious groups get tax exempt status despite doing nothing to earn that, and a lot to prove they should be taxed. I never said that suddenly we could feed and house all the homeless with those tax dollars
Post and my comment are about homelessness. Categorically, neither the post nor my comment were about taxes. So you changed the subject without even indicating you were doing so. 🙄
Awesome cool thank you for your contribution. But yeah glad to see we agree on an entirely tangentially related topic.
Edit: You are free to discuss taxes. But stop trying to frame it as a disagreement with my position which had nothing to do with taxes. Do it elsewhere where relevant.
The post is about the contradiction between homeless people getting the shaft while churches get handouts. There was no change of subject, you just set your focus narrowly and apparently decided anyone outside that would be wrong in multiple ways.
Misinformation. Churches do not get handouts.
Corporations do.
You are free to discuss taxes. But stop trying to frame it as a disagreement with my position which had nothing to do with taxes. Do it elsewhere where relevant.
Not getting taxed while taking in revenue is a handout. Not sure why you're so insistent on arguing.
You're adamant that your random subjective reading if the post is the only valid one and it's not. It's weird you want to insist it is
There are plenty of valid complaints about (many) American religious institutions, but the constant shoe-horning in of complaints about religion in unrelated posts that I see on Lemmy comes across as bitter and myopic.
A lot of us have been victims of the church(hi); its leaves a bloody trench in its wake.
or tried our hand at activism and been smacked down by religious groups for doing the shit they espouse on paper (not strongly me, in any way I care about) and are understandably bitter.
And it hits harder, because most people grew up hearing these are the paragons of moral virtue, and then then pull this shit.
Plus they won't shut up and get a ton of special treatment, but almost never use it for good (notice nobody's talking shit about Harriet Tubman, john brown, or the quakers. Diggers levellers anabaptists, too, not even the ULC or church of Satan).
They paint their own target.
Sure, and that's terrible, but from a different perspective, most of these beliefs and behaviors you've identified would persist without religious institutions and their proponents formalizing them as policy. Religion can give people a way to justify a lot of the terrible beliefs that they had internalized anyway, because it's part of the dominant culture. But misogyny, racism, homophobia, transphobia, classism, xenophobia, and moral hypocrisy aren't caused by religion or religious beliefs, any more so than atheism or agnosticism causes people to be tolerant or accepting of others in spite of their differences. And that's a foundational premise to many of the criticisms of religion I see on Lemmy. But it's just objectively wrong. If you want to look at a historical example of the productive power of religion, look no further than the SCLC (Southern Christian Leadership Conference), which was one of, if not the most significant, political and religious organizations of the Civil Rights movement. It helped to organize people into a fighting force for real progressive change and it did so by way of lines of communication between black congregations across the country. For even more examples of religion as a tool of social progress, I recommend the wikipedia page on Liberation Theology.
Missing the point.
I already mentioned that shoehorning criticism of religion into conversations that were unrelated came across as bitter and myopic. Your point was, essentially, that a lot of people are bitter towards Christianity, which is implied by my own observation. If you have nothing to add beyond restating what was already said by the person to whom you are replying, then I would suggest saving yourself the time in the future and just clicking the up arrow. Or doing literally nothing. Either of those are fine options.
I was commenting after thatthat had been done. Youre arguing with the wrong person, regardless of how I feel about your points. I'm going to be the bigger person and leave now
Then come back, after a cup of tea, and write this part.
You can be all manner of shitty without religion, but religion as a framework is generally (and they're not all the same) a tool for getting people to accept and do awful shit-partially, I admit, a (violent) selection pressure, but when you believe blatantly magical bullshit, you're more easily manipulated against your stated conscience and general interest, and the people willing to do that tend to be the biggest bastards. Its also a mostly static model of reality youre very emotionally attached to, with no or problematic adjustment mechanisms, and those are always dangerous, even when they're as or more accurate than other options (which none of the big ones are).
Religion doesn't determine good/bad, but it's got its finger on the needle. That's not to say it hasn't produced things I respect; Spinoza, Hegel, guy whose name I can never remember how to spell who wrote 'pedagogy of the oppressed', but I'm not sure how much any of those are attributable to it, and a lot (most? One is too many) of those holy wars (including the worst ongoing genocide I'm aware of at time if writing) serve(d) little/no material interest, of anyone.
So I'm only saying this because you basically walked up and asked me. But also I'm queer and it makes me feel very unsafe. Its a kind of volatility, if someone is, say, any of the abrahamic faiths, that they can just... Turn, almost instantly, for reasons I can't argue or persuade or accommodate, for no real reason, against my very existence. Ive lost a lot of people to that. And it fucking sucks. No nonreligious person did this to me until ~2016. It took fascism, which I would argue is a (particularly bad) religion.
So your assertions here are the following:
religion functions by 1) lying to people about the fundamental nature of reality in order to 2) manipulate them into doing bad things and that central to this is the idea that doing point 1 actively enables or facilitates point 2.
religion constitutes a "static model of reality" to which people are emotionally attached, which is fundamentally dangerous.
religion does not "determine" good or bad.
Religious violence is a thing that exists.
You're queer and religion bothers you.
So, point by point:
many religions make complex assertions about the metaphysical nature of the universe, often including the existence of supernatural phenomena, individuals, locations, etc. I'm not going to try to argue for the existence of any mystical element of any particular faith, but I will challenge the innately reductive analysis of religion you've provided. Most religions, particularly the very old ones, incorporate historical, philosophical, artistic, communal, and ethical traditions. You seem to center your understanding of religious faith around the metaphysical or supernatural components and have asserted that these components warp the underlying perception of reality of its participants for the express purpose of making people behave in such a way as to "do awful shit" and act against your "conscience and general interest." In making a causal assertion of this kind, however, you really need to be able to support that assertion with something that proves a causal link between what you describe as a belief in "blatantly magical bullshit" and a specific pattern of behavior. Why is it the belief in the supernatural and not, for example, hierarchical organizations of power, something that has existed as a component of organized religion for millennia, but also in virtually all political and dominant social institutions for just as long? Perhaps people are more inclined towards mob mentality or to fall behind powerful and charismatic leaders, regardless of the institution from which they're working. For example, the Soviet Union under Stalin was a brutally repressive society that actively criminalized both organized religion and LGBT persons. The absence of religion did not magically produce a society devoid of people unwilling to brutally oppress their fellow countrymen.
you seem to be working with terms that don't really carry a lot of significance or meaning for anyone other than yourself. What, exactly, do you think constitutes a "static model of reality?" And what, exactly, is problematic about that? Because in my mind, most people operate with a fairly static understanding of reality. Not to say it's the same understanding of reality. Ideologies are as complex and different as the people that internalize them, and they inform our personal understanding of the world we inhabit. For most people, altering these beliefs about the world is non-trivial. As a staunch leftist, someone would have a hard time selling me on the merits of laissez-faire capitalism as an effective mechanism of distributing wealth in a society. My understanding of the fundamental nature of economics, human nature, and reality itself precludes this. Am I working from an overly static and inflexible model of reality?
religion is deeply concerned with the nature of good and evil. Admittedly, these are things you might not actually believe in. Perhaps you're a moral relativist. Perhaps not. If you are, I don't have much to say to you about this. You believe good and evil are culturally determined moral concepts and nothing else, from a personal perspective, beyond socially conditioned behavior.
religious violence, or "Holy Wars" as you've put it, are virtually all fought for the same purpose as any other war: the primitive acquisition of wealth and the expansion of a nation or nations hegemony. If you think what's going on in Palestine is not driven by Israel's desire for Palestinian land, then I have a bridge to sell you.
your experiences are both tragic and common. I've personally been physically and emotionally abused by members of specific religious organizations, for reasons and in ways I don't feel comfortable sharing with strangers on the internet, and by people who were sociopaths that used religion as a cudgel to bully and control others. But I've also been comforted and treated kindly by other people for whom their religious faith was an important part of their lives - people who were sick and in pain their entire lives, but who found serenity and comfort through their beliefs and shared that with people around them who were also suffering. History is full of people who used religion as an excuse to do terrible things, but history also has a tendency to amplify monsters and forget the decent people whose faith may have driven them to have a more positive impact on the world.
If you want to hate religion because you're bitter, that's fine. You can feel about religion any way that you want. But don't be offended when you bring it up out of nowhere and someone tells you that your comments are irrelevant to the current discussion.
The world doesn't revolve around your personal bitterness.
You're saying I'm saying 'religion is x'
I'm generally saying 'religion tends towards x' so two twins, one raised religious, one not, you could end up with anything.
A hundred sets of twins, one in each set religious, the other not influenced by it at all; the religious ones, on average, are gonna suck more, but only on average.
I do think the concept that 'the world doesn't matter because its temporary and only heaven matters, therefore anything is permissible' is terrifying, and should get you kept away from sharp objects heavy machinery and any position of authority over anything. There are a few specific points doctrine about beliefs like that, that only show up without religion in cases of extreme mental illness, and I think can skew the average of how shit people are, but they tend to differ even between people sitting on the sane pew.
You seem very intent on picking fights about this though, and the things youre arguing against are not the ones I have said. (Some I believe, some I don't, some you could maybe stretch to being a straw man of something I believe). You don't seem to really be arguing with me here, and me engaging with what you say seems to be mostly ignored. Are you okay?
Lemmy has a weird hate-boner for Christianity. It's like a visceral toxic hatred. Sure it would make more sense for you to take from the top one percent in society to actually solve the problem, but that way you don't get to punish an entire religious group for their vocal minority 1% who squander wealth and strive for political power, using Jesus as nothing more than a stepping stool
A lot of it probably comes from deeply negative personal experiences, combined with a general propensity for people to apply a categorical belief to particular experiences. People who were treated badly by a particular group of Christians, or people who see and hear about certain Christians advocating for some terrible politician or political goal, are applying a generalized belief to how all Christians act, and potentially to all religion in general. It's much harder to accept that the world is a deeply complicated and messy place and that religion and religious belief is a much more complex element of human civilization, culture, and personal identity than what many people would care to acknowledge.
Yeah. I regularly attend multiple churches. There are a few bad eggs, sure, but 99% of people I talk to there are either lovely people or normal people. Same goes for workplaces as well. I don't see Churches as being worse than any other environment I've been in. But when assholes are Christians, they weaponise the Bible to justify being an asshole. If anything I think Christians in general should be more vocal about things happening in churches that are not okay, but there may be a concern of causing division in an otherwise wholesome atmosphere.
I have a close friend who converted to Christianity, and they said that a fault they observe in Christians can be that they're too nice and too vulnerable, to the point that people can get away with not very nice things.
I think Atheism gets a bad rap these days also. I'm sure most atheists are lovely people, but the people who make it known that they're atheists, or make it their whole personality, are not.
And caring for them, because a lot of them can't function as normal members of society for whatever reason. The real estate is only one piece of this. But yeah, if people were willing to pay for all that, it wouldn't be a problem. As it is, it's always the next guy's problem.
Correct. The “whatever reasons” you cite include chronic illness, mental illness, addiction, and abusive relationships. These are not unique to homelessness but are disproportionately prevalent in the population and therefore a key obstacle to overcome.
Addressing this takes labor and money to handle, a process that is often undertaken by nonprofits with funding from government, but also from charities and churches.
Not sufficient funding though, obviously. Sure there's programs, but there's usually a gigantic waiting list, or the service is so overcrowded some of the potential clients would rather try their luck on their own. And, if the government is involved, there tends to be a kind of red tape that can only be described as mean-spirited.
Maid on Netflix is a great depiction of what it's like in the first-world underclass, if anyone is interested.
Mmm I think you’re missing one of the core points of this though: churches have historically and traditionally offered and been used as sanctuaries, often by the poor and downtrodden in a society. In the US these days, you don’t see nearly as much of that. It’s more about evangelism and dogmatism and prosperity gospel. Christians in the US demonstrably doesn’t care that much about poor people these days.
More broadly: as someone who was raised Christian but is now a staunch atheist, I and many others would have far fewer issues with Christians if they would actually fucking practice what their religion preaches instead of whatever some MAGApastor tells you that Supply Side Jesus says.
I don’t disagree with you per se? I simply haven’t seen empirical evidence to support this statement:
Meanwhile the evidence that the ultra wealthy are actively screwing over the lower class piles up daily. If you have a citation for that thesis above I’d love to talk.
Yeah, this was my first thought as well as soon as I read the image. We have tons and tons of literally empty housing units. Even if you take away the ones that are only temporarily vacant while searching for a new tenant, you're still left with a bunch of housing units that sit empty, waiting to be flipped for a profit by real estate investors.
Most homeless are in the big cities, most churches are out in the boonies. The homeless are very unlikely to accept being bussed to a flyover state to sleep in a church in bumfuck nowhere. For a myriad of reasons.
Keep in mind also that a lot of them have a very hard time accepting any help due to past trauma as well.
It's not a situation with a quick fix. Really the first step isn't even ensuring housing for the homeless, it's making sure we don't get more homeless. We likely can't save a subset of today's homeless because they don't want/or won't accept any help that comes with any strings (like no drugs or just they can't trash the place). But we can ensure no-one else ends up on the streets by beefing up mental healthcare and social services.
Churches "sponsor" people in other countries all the time. They could do the same for two people in the nearest city, they don't have to force people to relocate.
There is actually an easy fix - build houses and give them to people. I remember when "Habitat for Humanity" was so much more prominent in churches.
I can't tell if you are purposefully taking the post literally just to be able to shoot it down... But I'm giving you the benefit of the doubt
Just think of how many homeless people would actually refuse to live in any of these Mega mansions
Or better yet, imagine what these "churches" could do with the literal millions they spend in mansions and private jets to help the homeless... You know, if they actually care about that and were not just tax avoidance operations
Since I'm not American I keep forgetting about your for profit churches. The concept is just too foreign to me. When I think church I think of 300 year old cold stone building in the countryside.
Still there are homeless that would refuse, some from not believing or trusting you, some from not wanting to relocate even if it means that level of comfort, some from being deep into addiction thinking that they'll be forced to get clean. And some will take you up on it and just absolutely trash the place trying to steal anything not bolted down.
That said the vast majority would for sure jump on it and thrive. So if it was at all possible to make happen it would be a good idea.
America definitely has its old, historic churches, but they're far from common.
We have so many other kinds of churches, huge mega churches that essentially have a whole campus. Tiny churches in shopping centers. Growing up I went to a little church that was in the middle of an otherwise normal neighborhood.
Megachurches are the minority of churches though
Most people here are taking the post literally. A smaller, not insignificant but smaller, number are reading satire/irony (regarding tax exemption) into it but that does not mean there is only one valid interpretation.
Pro tip, if you need to reject the majority reading of a rhetorical post in order to defend it, that’s an indication you might be the one who is approaching in bad faith. Either that or the post is indefensible and needs rewritten.
I happen to agree with your position too, but just be careful about calling that commenter out for something as benign as taking a straightforward text literally.
They have a hard time "accepting help" because as often as not; it isn't really help.
Its libs jacking themselves off with the monkey paw; doing awful shit using nice words so they can feel good while being assholes.
Sure you get a room and three meals a day! No pets, must detox first, curfew but also you must have a job, and also dont mind the bars haha yes we do have to lock you in.
You must be out of your mind to prefer sleeping in drug riddled unsafe camps in a leaky tent to what you just described. You tried to make it look bad, but even with your hyperbole it really isn't.
You've obviously never been homeless or had an animal you gave a shit about.
I love my dog. I only adopted her when I had the living space and security to take care of her. Strange how that works huh?
I wonder how much you actually care about an animal if you think it's something to be used as leverage for not having to better your life.
Like half of Americans are one paycheck away from being homeless. So what point exactly are you making? That you're morally superior for being better off? Or that we should wait until we have at least two paychecks saved? You have all the answers?
My answer seems to be living in a developed country in Europe. I can tell you, I felt very superior about the place I live walking the streets of San Francisco last year and being harassed by homeless people every street corner asking me for money or drugs.
Also yes, have at least two paychecks saved if that's a possibility for you. It's hilarious how you try to make your own advice seem like some alien concept that's unachievable.
I didn't feel morally superior at all, but the way you people are unable to come up with any good excuse why homeless people don't want to use the help that's available to them and instead turn into raging incoherent idiots is quickly changing that.
Had the dog when you became homeless.
Found a stray who helped you, with emotional support and doggishness(finding food, staying safe), as has been a thing since before humans ever slept inside anything other than a fucking cave, to survive.
Seems like you just want an excuse to hunt them for sport, because realizing they're so fucking similar to you and youre like two pieces of paperwork (not even filed by you, doesn't even need to be correct) away from being in that position is Fucking Terrifying, but you also don't want to have a society where we don't let this fucking happen to people, because you're afraid you won't get as many of your favorite treats.
Don't be that guy.
Lmao all these assumptions and strawmen. It's really not worth my time to respond to your incoherent ramble because I actually got my shit together. Good luck, don't let your copium run out.
So you don't deny any of it? Just deflect abd reassure yourself that 'I have my shit together, so it can't happen to me'
Cope
Why do they always say exactly that? As if I'm the one with the fucked coping mechanisms here, instead of responding to anything ive said, like its some sort of gotcha?
Are you mad?
You're not even responding to shit I said; youre just like three comments into trying to find an excuse why I'm someone you shouldn't listen to, because compassion is too scary for you, but you would feel like such a huge ass arguing against the things I've said, and you know it.
I mean, even before you get as far as the opinion of the homeless, most churches aren't going to want to host two high-needs, possibly substance-addicted people from the big city in their atrium ("think of the children!"), which is the point of this.
It's a situation that absolutely has a quick fix, just not a super cheap quick fix. It's far easier to not formally address it, and leave the cost on them and whoever happens to be around them. There's more than enough resources out to fix it if there was the political will.
Also there is a cheap quick fix, because there is adequate empty housing. Landlords just refuse to rent it. The people just need to confiscate unused housing after x (x being an appropriate number for the area) days not being a primary residence.
Not the government. The people. And if the resident leaves/dies, that housing goes to someone new. The landlord never gets it back. That's important; they need to be afraid, but have an easy out (just put somebody in there, lower rent, etc)
I mean, taxing away houses and then giving them back to the homeless still counts as an expenditure. You're probably going to want to give them each a nurse and a meal plan as well, if you want them to stick around, because as mentioned these people often have persistent issues.
The people have never done shit. Not once in history.
Taxing is the government. They work for the owners, not the people dying on the street. Governments are all, at this moment in the supreme court, advocating for the right to criminalize sleeping outside even when there's literally no other legal option.
Oh. I guess every single history source I've ever read lied then. Thanks for informing me.
What have you been reading? Pretty much the only place where the people magically, spontaneously organise is in political speeches. The Patriots wouldn't have existed without guys like Jefferson, the French revolution was run by rogue military factions and exclusive political clubs, and the Leninists have it right in their name.
Oh. Shit magical and spontaneous? So there's nothing other than a master with a whip and a fucking wizard?
Its not what i favor, or what im proposing, but spontaneous organization does happen. Youve never been in a disaster, or started digging a hole at the beach, have you?
Kind of, yeah. The way I see it it's a human limitation; we need a certain level of indirection to pull off anything bigger than a band of hunter-gatherers. Some systems are more whippy than others, though.
Actually, yes I have, but never have I seen more than a handful of people get involved at once, and I never heard from that dude who started directing traffic again. I've also seen the bystander effect. Never in history. Maybe on the beach, but not in history.
You've never tried to organise any kind of activism, have you?
So, the beach thing. Why does it happen, and why does it 'not happen anywhere else'?
Have you read 'a paradise built in hell'?
Did you read my point about believing in the existence of, but not favoring spontaneous organization. A deliberate but headless structure is possible! They're actually really cool! Good thing too, because strict hierarchies are wildly inefficient and trend towards flattening the territory to match the map, which tends to lead to fascism.
And if I believed it was only a fuhrer or a grand wizard, I'd fucking kill myself and take as many as I could with me. Thankfully I've seen (and executed) proof to the contrary.
As far as I can tell, being in a novel enough situation emergency puts people in a different headspace. After a while, normality creeps back in, and if the emergency continues it looks less like a community pulling together and more like Haiti or parts of Myanmar. Mostly, though, it's an empirical observation. Besides what we've covered, it's hard as shit to get people to show up or care about activism, and if a meeting gets big enough it stops working, so you have to appoint someone to head whatever thing. This proves true over and over again.
I don't think that automatically means Hitler, though. Representative democracy seems to work if set up just right. Hopefully it's here to stay.
The second shittiest roommate I ever had was a loud evangelical.
I was at the time actively the closest thing she would ever meet to a particular famous dude who died on the thing she worshipped, who she claimed to care about.
When she started fucking with my shit while I was out, I just made a bunch of copies of the house key and handed them out, so I'd have people to watch my door for me. Started cooking big dinners. She couldn't actually say anything.
The trick is; don't Fucking ask. Point out that sleeping in the park sucks and will get you killed by police, but meetings in the park are genuinely pleasant (unless climate change is real). They might shoot you, but they won't be able to argue.
Apologies I didn't understand what this means, did you hand out keys so your friends would randomly be over and she would be afraid of getting caught?
Friends? A couple, I hope I can call friends, but the rest just went to anyone unhoused who wanted a warm place to sleep/hang and a hot meal.
On that I agree 100%
What does this mean?
If every church houses two homeless people, no more homeless people.
Assuming the distribution is the same for both
(it's not)
But the point is not invalid. It's a problem that seems insurmountable but can definitely be tackled.
Although homeless people absolutely can and do migrate. They prefer cities for somewhat similar reasons to everyone else, and with no place they are allowed to live why not squat somewhere with lots of (begging/stealing/dumpsterdiving) opportunities and shorter walks?
Maybe OP believes every town in the US has exactly 1 church and 2 homeless people and is mildly infuriated that the church doesn't allow the 2 homeless people to live there?
I think OP believes every town in the US has twice as many homeless people as churches, it doesnt need to be exactly 1 church and 2 homeless people.
But either way, that's probably not true. Since homeless people tend to be in larger cities.
But then again, lots of people become homless in the suburbs and then move to the city to get the social services. If churches in the suburbs housed a few people as they become homeless, it would probably help. It's better to keep people in their communities so they have a better chance of returning to housefullness.
But probably not that much, since homelessness rates are strongly correlated with housing prices, so expensive cities create more homelessness than cheap suburbs.
Not sure why you'd think OP is saying 1 church per town. Just that there are ~380k churches in the United States, and less than twice as many homeless people.
I agree, far too many people are left out in the cold at night when we have many public, climate-controlled buildings with working bathrooms and possibly even showers that are empty after a certain hour. If the homeless were able to regularly get a good night's sleep and a shower in, they might be more able to hold down jobs and become contributing members of society again.
Schools certainly would be great as a shelter after hours, most have gyms with showers, possibly laundry machines, and certainly ample space for someone to sleep with a sleeping bag. If we could just figure out a way to make sure everything stays clean for students to use the next day, no left-behind drugs, no vandalism, etc. that could be a wonderful solution.
My guess is that in most places the homeless population would easily fit within the gymnasium alone.
They're implying that there are two homeless people for every church and that every church should house two homeless people to solve homelessness. Not agreeing with OP, just trying to answer your question.
Not even directly house. Even helping support those 2 people would go a long way toward demonstrating that churches actually do some good.
There's only two more homeless people than churches in the United States. If we make every homeless person into a church, we can also have more churches.
I’m also confused by what the image itself is trying to say
If you take 2 of every homeless person in the US into one of every church in the US, there would be no more homeless people in the US.
That rate of homelessness seems like a wild underestimate. However, I don't know much about the southern united states other than that they basically export the homelessness they create to other states through bussing programs. So this number might be better calculated considering both the spatial distribution of homelessness and the spatial distribution of churches. With out knowing where the churches are and where the homeless are, the number is a bit beguiling. That being said, it does seem that its the areas with lots of churches that create the conditions for homelessness, and then those areas export the problem they create to other areas (rural red states have been bussing the homeless and other 'undesirables' to metro areas of blue states for decades, rather than fund and operate local solutions).
Huh? Is this like a red state/blue state thing, or do you have something to indicate that towns with more churches generate more homeless? It doesn't really make sense to me because homelessness is tied to housing prices, and cities are where housing is more expensive, and the ratio of church to population is probably a lot lower in cities.
It's a red state blue state thing.
Red states (rural areas) deal with homelessness by buying the homeless bus tickets and sending them to metropolitan areas within blue states. Basically, red states create issues with homelessness because of their social policies, then externalize the consequences of those policies. This has been the case for decades. Before 2010 this was almost exclusively a red state issue. They would buy a homeless person a bus ticket to CA or NY and that was that. However, more recently some blue cities like Portland are trying the same strategy.
I thought this was common knowledge around homelessness in the US, that it was a blue state problem caused by red states.
Well it can't be exclusively caused by red states, but I see what you mean. I'm just not a fan of the implication that churches have something to do with it.
Bruh who the duck do you think is buying the tickets.
It's not an implication, it's an direct consequence.
Churches are a toxic venom in the vein of society, this kind of exclusionary behavior is precisely why the exist.
You conflate Christianity with Republicanism. Please do not act like churches are the mastermind behind politicians who use vaguely church-scented branding to try to pander to Christians while acting against many of the principles laid out in the Bible.
I believe that number was accurate in 2022 as noted in the screenshot but has risen to 650,000 since.
You're reaching
My home town had four churches and no homeless people. What homeless people are those churches supposed to help?
Meanwhile, in the city I now live in, there's tons of churches and half of them give free food to the homeless every single day, and there's lines going around the block at all of them.
There is no magic bullet that can solve homelessness. Anything proposed must be a part of a larger solution. There are tons of proposals that, if actually done and not half-assed, would help immensely.
I do not understand these downvotes. Like how dare you see churches that actually help the poor like they're supposed to?
It's people downvoting because "Religion = bad".
When in reality it should be "Religion = institutions and institutions can be either good or bad or mix of both."
Edit: Spelling
It hurts because a good number of churches DO = bad, but we lack the emotional drive to identify which ones and call on their downfall. The result is we amplify blanket statements and assumptions that do nothing but give a pass of diversion to immoral soul sucking capitalists, all of whom are directly responsible for the housing crisis.
Knee jerk emotional voting. People don’t like seeing information that contradicts their deeply rooted beliefs, and downvoting is emotionally less costly than performing self-investigation.
Don’t get me wrong I would love if every problem in America could be patched by taxing some sussy non profits. But there’s no evidence for that.
At best it’s a comfy position that lets you “not my problem” your way through life, at worst it’s propganda to divert attention from the system of capital that is actually keeping the lower class unhoused and constantly struggling.
Not trying to be a smartass here, it’s genuinely just human nature to choose an emotionally efficient worldview. One-on-one conversations and counter propoganda are one solution to getting folks to see truth. It just takes energy.
You are getting downvoted but you are unabashedly correct. The rhetorical goals behind the post are noble, but the suggested solution is infeasible to a degree that verges on laughable.
Homeless people need to live in homes, of which there are plenty being hoarded vacant by the ultra wealthy.
Homes for the homeless fixes homelessness. Guess what giving a homeless person a church to live in makes them? Still homeless.
In the worst case interpretation, this meme is using churches as a polemical meat shield to protect neoliberal and corporate interests.
Those churches might have already helped. I'm no fan of religion for it's various stupidities, but I am a fan of organized good will.
They're not spread out like churches though. Here, it might work, we have an insane # of churches per capita and a lot of homeless, but what about LA? No way there are as many churches as homeless there. Same with houses, as someone suggests upthread. There are few vacant spaces here and many who need homes but in any state beginning with the letter I maybe there are thousands of homes and few homeless because they would freeze to death in the winter.
One per church?
ITT: People who don't know homeless people can catch a ride to a different town like anyone else.
I mean, I don't actually think in churches is the right idea, but that's a nitpick, not a gotcha.
I hate the idea of treating homeless like babies. Most of these people got to where they are by choices. If they wanted to stay at the church they probably can. Most churches I know have cots for people down and out. If these people wanted to stay at the church they would have.
If churches are going to be a tax free non-profit, we need to see 'services done' at roughly a similar order of magnitude as their receipts would allow. And no, a couple of cots is not the answer. Perhaps a small apartment building with 8 units that the church owns and operates, and provides permanent residency for a small local population of the unhoused.
Other wise I think they church should be disbanded and its organizers held liable for tax fraud.
Well I don't think you should go trying to disband someone's religion. In my area Churches usually donate people and money to organizations that help the homeless. I've worked in the soup kitchens serving hundreds
I mean if they've got the receipts of how the money is spent like any other non-profit has to provide, I have no issue with it. If they can't provide the receipts, that's a for-profit institution, and should be taxed as such.
By definition of non profit they should not be making profit
If I run a 501-3c (and I have), I have to provide what amounts to a complete budget of where my organizations income came from, where it went to, and how much was spent on things like overhead, office expenses, executive pay, travel, etc. My board is responsible for me getting those numbers right, otherwise we run afoul of the IRS.
Churches are not held to the same standard. A church is effectively granted tax free status on its receipts (income) and is not required to provide any charitable services as a product of those receipts. They are fundamentally different legal entities, however, I'm arguing that they shouldn't be, and that churches and "faith based" institutions should be held to the same standards as any other charitable organization under the 501c3 definition of a non-profit.
If your church or faith based organization doesn't exist to provide a charitable mission, then it shouldn't be free from taxation (or it should not exist).
Churches don't make money. That wouldn't make any sense unless someone is embezzling
Are you serious?? Like, honest to goodnesses, are you serious?
https://www.nbcnews.com/business/business-news/mormon-church-multibillion-investment-fund-sec-settlement-rcna71603
There are more empty homes in the US than homeless.
While churches taking extreme advantage of tax exemption is a concern, a concern that should be addressed, this situation pales in comparison to the hoarding, lobbying and zoning that goes into keeping the illusion that housing is a scarce resource up, and prices intentionally high.
A lot of them have severe mental health issues
Objectively false. Huge majorities of homeless individuals face chronic illness, disability, untreated mental illness, or have been abused.
The numbers vary, but most homeless people have a job and still can’t get housing due to overwhelming unaffordability, a factor which is manipulated against them by zoning laws and corporate ownership.